The cult of the Magdalen was especially popular in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Gospel stories being elided to create the two main types favoured by painters and their patrons. The first, more frequent in the Baroque depicts the Magdalen repenting her sins after a life of luxury. The second, favoured earlier, shows her serenely reading, with the symbol of the alabaster box of ointment, with which she had anointed Christ’s feet. The Magdalen reading was one of Benson’s most often repeated themes, many of them differing considerably from each other which further emphasises the extent of workshop activity. Exactly as with the St. Jerome where the versions are much more close together in composition, there is consistency of quality in the works.

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